


A Place Called Home

by deathmallow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, PostWar, everlark toasting, mess with katniss, victor family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-28
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 20:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/777594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathmallow/pseuds/deathmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Giftfic!</p><p>It's the night before Katniss and Peeta's wedding, and Haymitch and Johanna have some gifts and advice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Place Called Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msdisdain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msdisdain/gifts).



> For msdisdain on her birthday. A bit of Hayhanna messing with Everlark, because it's always too damn fun. :D

“No, not that one,” Johanna said, shaking her head as Haymitch reached for the green-wrapped package. “That one was supposed to stay separate.” But that was what came of trying to corral two kids under the age of five and ship them off to be minded for a few hours, attend to some final details for tomorrow, and then also gather stuff together for Katniss and Peeta’s pre-wedding dinner all at once. A few things were inevitably going to slip through the cracks. She counted the two of them lucky that Wally and June had actually stayed put without getting into something, and in clean clothes, long enough to count.

Haymitch gave her a slight smirk and said, “I imagine this is for you from Johanna, sweetheart,” as he handed the package to Katniss.

“Kittycat, how ‘bout you and me go get some more bread?” she said smoothly.

Katniss glanced at the still-full bread basket and nodded, popping up from her seat and following Johanna into the kitchen, clutching the package. “What is it?” she asked a little suspiciously, and Johanna caught a hint of crimson around her cheeks.

“Oh, just a little something for tomorrow night,” she said casually, then grinned at Katniss.

To Katniss’ credit, she wasn’t the blushing little sixteen-year-old she’d once been and she actually managed to open the box. Her eyebrows rose as she rummaged through the tissue in the box and came up with the assortment of tubes. “Raspberry flavored edible paint? Chocolate? Lemon?”

“You’re married to an artist, I’m sure he can have fun with you as a canvas,” Johanna said sweetly. “And I’m sure he won’t mind you drawing your maps on him—can’t go wrong with a trail headed south—especially once you start licking it off.” She shook her head. “You’ve been together since you were teenagers and you’ve never tried that?”

“Honey got way too sticky and nasty, frosting is too thick, and actual paint isn’t edible,” Katniss muttered sullenly. Johanna suppressed a snicker at that. Then she looked at Johanna with a look of faint alarm. “You’re saying you’ve…”

She smirked at Katniss. “Haymitch likes the blueberry best—of course. Me, I recommend the orange. Although when I was knocked up I actually liked the raspberry and lime together …”

Katniss groaned. “That’s more than I needed to know about you and Haymitch.”

Johanna gave a snort of amusement. “We have sex regularly, and we’re gonna keep doing it. Little tougher with little kids around, but still a damn good time and yes, he’s very good at it. You’re twenty-two now. Time to accept the facts.”

“Hey, I just don’t want the details…?”

“Yeah, fine, keep digging in that box. You can blame Effie for the other part.” The woman was getting quite a name for herself designing lingerie, of all things, alongside the actual clothes she designed with Cinna. 

With a puzzled look, Katniss pulled all the body paint out as well as the first layer of tissue. Then she pulled out the delicate green lace-and-silk nightgown and the silk overrobe with a scene of from an orange sunset on the shoulders down to deep green wooded mountains at the hem. Although she was blushing as she held them up, Johanna noticed how her fingertips stroked the silk anyway. “This really isn’t…I don’t…I mean, it’s nice of you, but…”

Yeah, she remembered that too, how she’d protested at the gift of something soft and feminine and beautiful and felt uncomfortable at the idea of it. She also remembered plenty about the advice she’d gotten at that point.

“Katniss.” The other woman’s head jerked up at that; when Johanna used her name rather than the teasing nickname she always knew it was something serious. “If it was actually about making Peeta horny as hell, trust me, there’s plenty of trashy-looking shit I could have given you.” She’d been forced to wear some of it in her Capitol days. “It’s for you. So you have something nice and you feel good when you wear it.” She shrugged. “I mean, yeah, tomorrow night he’ll probably want to get them off you in about thirty seconds and let’s face it, you’ll be up for that, but…” 

Point was, it was a gift for Katniss, not one foisted on Katniss but really aimed for pleasing Peeta. She’d found out the difference herself between wearing something meant to make a man think she looked sexy and something that made her feel womanly and desirable. Funny enough, the latter did the trick anyway; seemed Haymitch was more than perceptive enough to react to that feeling of power and confidence in her, even if she wasn’t wearing what amounted to just skimpy ass-floss.

Carefully folding the nightgown and robe, Katniss looked at her and nodded. “Thanks,” she said lowly, and when she leaned in and gave Johanna a hug, Johanna was quick to reciprocate.

Heading back out to the kitchen, she heard Peeta saying with some chagrin, “…the ties on my stuff before the war came pre-tied. Fastened with a snap at the back of the collar. I think Portia knew I didn’t know how to do one and I’d probably make a hash of it and it would just be neater that way.” Johanna paused in the hallway short of the door, holding up a hand to halt Katniss too, as they listened.

“And you’ve had no chance to have to learn since, really. Not much call for wearing a tie when you’re at art school. Portia dealt with the male tributes. Cinna didn’t. So it probably just hasn’t crossed his mind that district boys don’t grow up knowing that.”

“You learned. You wore ties in the Capitol all the time. Even now you have to wear one on television all the time for press conferences.”

Haymitch was silent for a long few moments that made Johanna wince. “Yeah, all my ties on my Tour were pre-tied too. But Taffeta taught me when I was seventeen. It was part of the Capitol image. Dress like a gentleman, act like an arrogant bastard, even if the accent didn’t fit. That little incongruity just made it more…intriguing.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean…”

“Never mind it, Peeta, rather not wallow in all that crap tonight. It’s a quick lesson. I’ll get you squared away tomorrow before you go to the Justice Building.”

“Thanks. I mean…for everything.”

At that Johanna stepped into the kitchen again, still carrying the basket of fresh rolls. Haymitch looked at her for a minute and she could see in his expression he knew they’d been listening. She gave a half-shrug. He nodded slightly then grinned at Katniss and said, “Blueberry. Trust me.”

“Shut up, Haymitch,” she mumbled.

“What? Blueberry?” Peeta asking, looking confused.

“You’ll see,” Haymitch told him cheerfully. “By the way, you might want to keep your damn windows closed tomorrow night.”

“It’s summer and it gets stuffy,” Peeta argued.

“Especially when you’re working up a really good sweat?” Haymitch said with a raised eyebrow. Peeta’s fair skin betrayed his sudden blush. “Fine, if you get too loud you get to explain to a four-year-old and three-year-old just why Aunt Katniss and Uncle Peeta were screaming like they were being murdered.”

Well, Walter wouldn't hear, but Juniper would and of course she'd tell her older brother. Seemed like she told him everything, at least to Johanna's mind, since she was Wally's ears. “I suggest ‘We were playing a game grownups play that you’ll find out about when you’re older’.”

Haymitch glanced at her and gave her a slight smile. Then he looked back at Katniss and Peeta. “Look,” he said, “just…be happy together and enjoy it. It’s real this time. No Capitol thing you have to go through with for everyone else’s sake. Nobody can say you haven’t earned this.”

She thought about all of them years ago, the first time the two of them had been engaged and in despair because it was all empty Capitol bullshit, back when she and Haymitch were both firmly hidden in their own shells of tough talk and bitterness and loneliness and fear. She thought about the two of them singing the wedding song for her and Haymitch on a crisp January night, how this place had become home for her since. 

It hadn’t happened without scars and it had been a slow thing, but they all had grown stronger, and they’d done it together. There had been good moments and some bad, but she was so tangled up with all of them now there could be no other way. With a quiet certainty, she knew this was where she belonged and she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else tomorrow but watching the two of them finally take that step together.


End file.
